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Translated by W. E. Aytoun
“LIFT me without the tent, I say,—me and my Ottoman; | |
| I ’ll see the messenger myself! It is the caravan | |
| From Africa, thou sayest, and they bring us news of war? | |
| Draw me without the tent, and quick! As at the desert-well | |
| The freshness of the bubbling stream delights the tired gazelle, | 5 |
| So pant I for the voice of him that cometh from afar!” | |
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| The scheik was lifted from his tent, and thus outspake the Moor: | |
| “I saw, old chief, the tricolor on Algiers’ topmost tower; | |
| Upon its battlements the silks of Lyons flutter free. | |
| Each morning in the market-place the muster-drum is beat, | 10 |
| And to the war-hymn of Marseilles the squadrons pace the street. | |
| The armament from Toulon sailed; the Franks have crossed the sea. | |
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| “Towards the south the columns marched beneath a cloudless sky; | |
| Their weapons glittered in the blaze of the sun of Barbary; | |
| And with the dusty desert-sand their horses’ manes were white. | 15 |
| The wild marauding tribes dispersed in terror of their lives; | |
| They fled unto the mountains with their children and their wives, | |
| And urged the clumsy dromedary up the Atlas’ height. | |
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| “The Moors have ta’en their vantage-ground, the volleys thunder fast; | |
| The dark defile is blazing like a heated oven-blast; | 20 |
| The lion hears the strange turmoil, and leaves his mangled prey,— | |
| No place was that for him to feed,—and thick and loud the cries, | |
| Feu! Allah! Allah! En avant! in mingled discord rise; | |
| The Franks have readied the summit,—they have won the victory! | |
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| “With bristling steel, upon the top the victors take their stand: | 25 |
| Beneath their feet, with all its towns, they see the promised land,— | |
| From Tunis even unto Fez, from Atlas to the seas. | |
| The cavaliers alight to gaze; and gaze full well they may, | |
| Where countless minarets stand up so solemnly and gray | |
| Amidst the dark-green masses of the flowering myrtle-trees. | 30 |
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| “The almond blossoms in the vale, the aloe from the rock | |
| Throws out its long and prickly leaves, nor dreads the tempest’s shock: | |
| A blessed land, I ween, is that, though luckless is its Bey. | |
| ‘There lies the sea, beyond lies France! her banners in the air | |
| Float proudly and triumphantly,—a salvo! come, prepare!’ | 35 |
| And loud and long the mountains rang with that glad artillery.” | |
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| “’T is they!” exclaimed the aged scheik. “I ’ve battled by their side; | |
| I fought beneath the Pyramids! That day of deathless pride,— | |
| Red as thy turban, Moor, that eve, was every creek in Nile! | |
| But tell me,” and he griped his hand, “their sultan? Stranger, say,— | 40 |
| His form, his face,—his gesture, man,—thou saw’st him in the fray? | |
| His eye,—what wore he?” But the Moor sought in his vest awhile. | |
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| “Their sultan, Scheik, remains at home within his palace walls; | |
| He sends a pasha in his stead to brave the bolts and balls: | |
| He was not there. An aga burst for him through Atlas’ hold. | 45 |
| Yet I can show thee somewhat too: a Frankish cavalier | |
| Told me his effigy was stamped upon this medal here,— | |
| He gave it me with others for an Arab steed I sold.” | |
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| The old man took the golden coin; gazed steadfastly awhile; | |
| If that could be the sultan whom from the banks of Nile | 50 |
| He guided o’er the desert-path; then sighed, and thus spake he: | |
| “’T is not his eye, ’t is not his brow,—another face is there; | |
| I never saw this man before,—his head is like a pear! | |
| Take back the medal, Moor,—’t is not that which I thought to see.” | |
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